Life-Force
by Write-To-You
Summary: (SPOILERS FOR RISE OF SKYWALKER (EPISODE 9!) PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN PLEASSSEEEEE :O) Fix-it for THAT scene. They won't be able to live forever, but they can live for now.


**Author's Note: SPOILERS**

**SPOILERS**

**FOR RISE OF SKYWALKER**

**EPISODE 9**

**RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS**

**SPOILERS**

**Ooookay if you're still here than you either hate yourself or you've seen the movie. If that's the case, welcome! Let's freak out together for a second, okay?**

**3... 2... 1...**

**_AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!_**

**Okay. Now that that's taken care off, onto my fix-it. Because I got back from the theaters twenty minutes ago and I have approximately an hour and twenty minutes until I have to leave home again and I am ****_writing this thing_****. **

Kylo hopes the blood on his fingers don't leave traces on Rey's skin.

He's got enough blood on his hands to last a lifetime and then some, but that's all metaphorical. This is literal blood- blood that'll cake and leave fingerprints and... she's got too much on her as it is.

She's already started to get cold. Kylo can feel that the Force Aura she's always carried around her like a thousand lanterns has gone out. She hasn't vanished yet, though, and that's something.

Kylo manages to twist them around until she's lying in his lap. His leg throbs at the jarring but he ignores it, because there are more important things then the fact that he's hurt. She's _dead_. He'll be fine.

He lays a hand on Rey's stomach, fingers splaying over the beige-white of her robes. He puts his other hand on her cheek, and is strangely relieved when the blood doesn't transfer. It wouldn't have been right. She needs to stay clean.

He can feel the sweat on her face drying, loose tendrils of hair stuck flat against her cheekbones. Kylo breathes in, feeling the air swim with the Force. It's more darkly-tainted here than it is in other places in the Galaxy. So many Siths in one place... _Emperor Palpetine _having been there moments before... he really shouldn't be surprised that's the case.

He breathes in again, and then out, feeling the warmth and energy of life flowing from his fingertips. For awhile, Rey still doesn't stir. She's been gone longer than he'd realized, and this is going to take a lot.

It might just take _everything_.

But then Rey's arm shifts and her stomach rises slowly under his hand, chest filling with breath. She doesn't gasp like she's woken up from a nightmare or recovered from being drowned. She just... comes back, like she'd merely been sleeping and he'd gently woken her up.

Kylo knows she _hadn't_ been sleeping, though. If she had, he wouldn't feel his own Life Force waning out of him and into her.

It's worth it though, to see the look on her face when she opens her eyes. Rey smiles, and a tear spills over her bottom eyelashes and down to her chin. Kylo always manages to forget how easily she cries. It's never made her any less strong though, as evidenced by the death of the greatest Sith Lord the Universe has ever seen.

"Ben?" Rey whispers, and she looks at him with something akin to wonder. Kylo feels like she's actually seeing him, _him_, Ben Solo, not Kylo Ren, for the first time in her life.

He nods and then he smiles at her, and there's another first for the two of them.

When Rey lifts her hand to his cheek Ben does the only thing he can think of: leans down and kisses her. Both of their lips are gritty from the fight and at least one of them tastes like blood, but there's something about having her warmth pressed against him that makes Ben feel steadily stronger.

And then he realizes. The Life Force he was trying to give to her... she's giving it back.

"No, Rey," he gasps, abruptly breaking off the kiss and half pushing her away. Almost immediately he feels a rush of cold, though whether it's because she's farther away from him or because he's lost some of her Life Force he isn't sure. "You can't. You need this. I have... I have no place anymore."

Rey's eyes bubble with tears again and she puts her hand back on his cheek. The warmth returns and Ben feels himself ache not to resist. "I spent... my _whole life_ thinking I didn't have a place," she says softly, and her fingertips trace shapes on the sharp line of his cheekbone. "And then I found the Jedi, and the Rebellion. Finn, and Poe and Leia and... _you_. If a lonely, abandoned scavenger girl from nowhere can find her place in all of this... you can too, Ben."

Her voice breaks a little on his name and Ben only realizes that he's crying when she wipes underneath his eye with her thumb. "I won't let you let me live if it means you have to die," she finishes softly.

Ben clears his throat painfully and draws in a harsh breath. "Ok," he manages, and a smile blooms over Rey's face.

They pass the Life Force between them, feeling it flow into every part of their bodies. "We won't have forever," Ben warns as he feels a more steady sort of warmth settle on him, a warmth that means life. "You have more Force to give than anyone I've ever known but... even you don't have enough for two full lives."

Rey grins a little, and finally finds enough strength to sit up. Her fingers twine into Ben's sweat-soaked hair. "We don't need forever," she reminds him. "But we do have now." Her grin widens. "I think the normal life-expectancy of a Rebel is pretty low anyway."

Ben lets out a laugh, the first genuine one he's released in years, and his head falls forward to rest agains Rey's. "So I'm a Rebel now?" he confirms.

Rey scoffs. "Of course you are," she says, nudging his shoulder playfully. He likes that about her, how she can go from serious to joking in seconds. He's only ever seen it when she's around her friends, and he feels a certain sense of honor that she can be that way around him, now.

But then the thought darkens. _She feels that way now_, Ben realizes. _But what happens when she remembers all the things I've done? All the people I've killed? And even if _she_ finds some way to get over it... the others never would._

"Rey, I..." Ben hesitates, not wanting to see the happiness go out of her face. "I can't."

Rey looks suddenly wary and pulls away. "What do you mean, 'you can't'?" she repeats. "You can't? Or you _won't_?"

"I- both?" Ben tries. "The others... no matter how you feel or- or what you think of me... they'll always see me as the man who killed Han Solo. Luke Skywalker. _Hundreds _of others- entire worlds! Rey, I am a _monster_. Helping you stop Palpetine isn't going to suddenly erase that."

"I don't care," Rey says fiercely. "I don't care what _everyone_ thinks. Me... I know that you are good." She lays her hand on his heart. "_Here_. You're good where it counts. And Finn... Poe... they'll come around. They trust me, and- and I trust you."

"How can you?" he asks, in awe of her yet again. It could be seen as foolish how easily she trusts after everything that's happen, but he knows it comes down more to instinct and heart than nativity.

"Well..." Rey shrugs, and that seriousness switches to teasing again. "You _did_ save my life."

He looks at her searchingly, eyes roving over her still-pale, dirty, blood-streaked face. Her gaze is soft and gentle and _loving_, and while he still doesn't understand how he can't deny that all those feelings are really there.

Part of him wants to just let her go. It would be the easy route. He could shut off his feelings about as well as one could a leaky faucet, and he could get out of here and leave all of this behind. He could become someone new.

But he's is so _sick_ of taking the easy route.

Ben smiles faintly. Rey's face is still just centimeters from his own, and after everything that's happened he doesn't want her any farther away for a long, _long_ time.

"Okay," he says simply, but the word means everything.

Rey stands up and holds out her hand for him. "Let's go."

**Author's Note: LWEKJRLEKJRLKJ AHHHH not very long but I think it got the job done :D :D :D :D :D **

**Fix itsss are lifeeeeee and I literally would die without them just saying. If you've ready any good ones send them my way! I'll be on a Reylo phase for a little while, even longer if I go see the movie again :)**


End file.
